


Coalescence

by Hyperius (Euregatto)



Category: Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: But with more pining and feelings, F/M, First Kiss, Force Bond (Star Wars), Mutual Pining, Unresolved Sexual Tension, the elevator scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 07:52:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13406781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euregatto/pseuds/Hyperius
Summary: He stops the lift. There is no indication to his methods, as if all his decisions and conflictions are foreordained by a power greater than autonomy. You have been cautious, quiet—observing, some would say, those who don’t know how you tick, your eyes transfixed on his poignant gaze that will flicker briefly when he seems to consider something inexplicable. A memory only he recalls, and only when he looks at you.Kylo Ren is in love with you—your beauty, your agony, and that scares you.





	Coalescence

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I did the [Hand Touching Scene](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13294392) already, and the elevator scene was overdue. I wanted to try writing something different, so here's this. Enjoy!

 

  

   

Fatigue has been the essence of your motivation since you first abandoned the place where your parents first abandoned you. Your bones are aching when he stops the lift. His hand hits the protocol reset, setting a timer, and you are trapped with him. There is no indication to his methods, as if all his decisions and conflictions are foreordained by a power greater than autonomy.

You have been cautious, quiet— _observing_ , some would say, those who don’t know how you tick, your eyes transfixed on his poignant gaze that will flicker briefly when he seems to consider something inexplicable. A memory only he recalls, and only when he looks at you. He must think of you as modern innovation.

Kylo Ren is in love with you—your beauty, your agony, and that scares you.

Ben Solo—who you have come to understand is the lingering sliver of light in Kylo’s spirit that refuses to yield against his grief—glorifies your untapped strength, your unhinged torment. Ben Solo is the man you want to talk to. Kylo Ren is the man you have to talk through. You also realize that in the bleak surface of his eyes, they are one in the same. Take note and don’t look away.

“You don’t have to do this,” you tell him, the exhaustion is in your voice, in his face. This is a dance you’ve been through with him nearly twice a day for the entire last week on Ahch-To, yet each of you steps in circles rather than stepping closer. “I feel your conflict—it’s tearing you apart.”

You are his conflict.

“Ben”—he looks staggered by your endurance, by the radius of distance you cross like a vast ocean in a matter of a second—“when we touched hands, I saw your future. Just the shape of it, but solid and _clear_. You will not bow before Snoke!”

You want to take his hands in yours but the shackles are incommodious. He senses your desires through your imminent connection, he _must_ , because with a waft of his wrist the restraints detach and slam to the floor.

“You’ll _turn_ ,” you say, stepping over them, advancing on him. “I’ll help you.”

He lifts his hand to your face, impossibly gentle for someone so desperately broken, and his thumb, it runs over the arch of your cheek. “I saw something too,” he informs you under his breath, his gaze studying your features. You feel his thoughts through your bond. He considers your face. To him you are immaculate, as beautiful now as you once were, when coated in a fine layer of sand. “And because of what I saw, I know that when the moment comes _you_ will be the one to turn. You will stand with me.”

You feel the connection amplify, seeking the middle grounds of your futures. His mind opens further and you are allowed to carefully rifle through the images and memories allotted. There is one that spans across your mind like a nebula, and Ben is as young as you were when you first stumbled out on your own—he is standing off to the side, awkward knees, half-grown bones, clutching dismally as his robes. This would become redundant: the other students, their candles in the night and their many saber colors, who never touched or spoke to him. Life makes us hard. It changes us.

He lets you touch him, but your fingers unlike his are desperate and they would hook into his skin if they weren’t so afraid of commitment. “Ben,” you whisper with an entirely different meaning in your words than in your eyes. He sees it now, never too late—your mouth knows only what it wants to know and that is perhaps an immediate fault of your own. Somewhere between any other moment of your life you can recall and the now, you became well spoken, spoken of, spoken for.

The fatigue, it aches deep within the cage of your chest. It is an interlude to what comes next.

Regret, but it will only be acknowledged as regret after this is over. He knows, from your latest dreams, how often you imagine him now that you have found the island that used to accompany your sleep in the desert. The island is solitude, is reckless balance. He knows all of this and more, and leans his head down. Hesitates, waits, suspended. Will you deny his wants if they are your wants as well?

You bind your arms around his neck and allow him the pact of your lips. There is something about him that makes you think you can resist the failure of affection and defection. You believe, as everyone else these days, that you’re special. How could you not, with the way he looks at you? With the way the mighty Kylo Ren drops to his knees at the precipice of your bond and worships you?

_Should I stop?_

You embrace him with both hands. His beard is a shadow, tiny bristles digging into the meat of your palms. “No,” you say, “no, _never_.”

He kisses you again. It is feverish and deliberate and you can’t tell him that he’s your first—(first everything)—when it’s difficult to breathe. The heat pools into your stomach; hot, liquid concrete. A succession of little gasps. His lips acquaint themselves with your cheek, your jaw, the pulse point of your neck. That spot is sensitive and his hunger is insatiable. Whatever begins to happen to you, it’s hot and wet and you close your legs, grasp his hair, moan for him, _“Ben.”_ A prayer, permissive.

Ben Solo begins to slip under the surface of Kylo’s skin. He drives you back against the wall and you understand his patience was whittled to death years ago by hands fiercer and stronger than his own. His control is sloppy, so very desperate. Still you tremble beneath his hands. He lifts you up like a song and you catch his waist with your legs, if you’re comfortable or plain unlucky it doesn’t matter, you can’t quite comprehend your own thoughts. Both of you are an absolute mess. Coming undone at the seams.

His teeth catch the thin surface of your collarbone, sucking spots of red, a flushed color akin to the instability of his lightsaber. It appears much more intense against the snow, or when his emotions are as heightened as they are right now, with you clinging dangerously and your back digging into the jagged texture of the wall. You’re finally his and still you aren’t close enough. When will it be enough for him?

“Nothing,” he says breathlessly, intercepting your thoughts, “nothing else, no one else, will ever be enough for me.” His tongue laps at the bruises he’s leaving along the expanse of your neck. “Just you, only you. _Stars_ , Rey, what have you done to me?”

You don’t know, but it scares you all the same.

It doesn’t frighten you the way he once did when he assumed the role of an apex predator, concealed by a black mask and a spiteful certainty that can only be taught. Malice is not a natural occurrence. You knew you could love him despite this, as much as you didn’t want to, the instant you flayed open his face—the pad of your thumb catches on the scar; no amount of damage to his body or spirit will ever sway his appeal—and his kiss, as pleading as it is forgiving, is a blaze you often anticipate.

Instead you are frightened by how precarious your love for Ben Solo as become. Kylo Ren, he is the one that bothers you, even if one half loves you just as impetuously, as intensely as the other. His hands tell you _yes, this is right_. All you want is Ben. All you have ever wanted since the chasm rifted between you in the forest is Ben and this is him, here. Now you have him.

_I’m yours, Rey. You can have me, you can have anything you want from me._

And then the lift jolts, its cycle complete. “That’s our limit,” he utters against your skin.

Your fingers weave through his hair. “Ben, you don’t have to do this. It’s never too late.”

He kisses you again. Firm, you don’t want it to end. This all you will ever crave and you can feel that he thinks the same. But for now, he sets you down, and he retrieves the cuffs. You allow him to restrain you again as if their latch can possibly hold you still. Whatever it takes to appease the Supreme Leader, it shall be done.

You hold his gaze. The two of you coexist, and his every word leaves your skin black and blue just as yours push glass into his veins. That is not his fault. The truth is to blame, now and until the end of time. He does not look away when he says, “Rey, I saw who your parents are.”

_But that’s not why you’re holding on, is it?_

The doors open with a metallic hiss, and you face the throne room with pride. This is where you feel the new era, coming in.

This is where everything ends.


End file.
